Manhattan Monday

- On the market: a five-story, century-old, 18,500 square feet Upper East Side townhouse listing for $64M. You get 30 rooms including 15 bedrooms, 17 bathrooms, and a grand ballroom. The home sold for a mere $7.6M in 2003. Now that there's some flipping! If it goes for the asking price, it will eclipse the previous Manhattan townhouse price record of $53M.

- Bloomberg wants to close the city's Off Track Betting parlors, which annually run a budget deficit in the millions. There's an OTB near my apartment and the mostly-seedy crowd it draws really stands out on the prim Upper East Side. Kinda funny.

- Madonna, Lucy Liu, Bruce Willis, and Demi Moore are among hundreds of people contacted by the New York Health Department after a bartender at Manhattan hot-spot Socialista came down with hepatitis A. The celebs were at the club to celebrate Ashton Kucher's 30th birthday, where the bartender handled drink garnishes with his bare hands. So far 90 people have come in for a vaccine shot.

- Would you buy wine from Staten Island? Didn't think so.

- The Upper West Side's Cafe La Fortuna, famous because John Lennon wrote many of his songs there, closed yesterday after 32 years due to an impending tripling of the rent.

- The PATH train celebrates its 100th anniversary today. Rides are free from 6am - 11pm. Now's your chance to finally see Hoboken.

Manhattan Monday

- NYC is hurting for new cops. Could it be the $25K starting salary?

- Brooklyn's McCarren Pool, a nifty concert venue of late, is being turned back into a swimming pool. Yuppies in the hood rejoice.

- A scandal may be brewing over NYC's primary vote count. Unofficial tallies show zero votes cast for Barack Obama in about 80 election districts, including heavily black neighborhoods. A "formal review" is underway.

- Bloomberg says he'll refuse to enforce the city's new electronics recycling law, saying it violates a "whole bunch of federal laws on interstate commerce." The city council recently passed a law which fines electronics manufacturers $100 for people who throw their electronics in city trash. The law takes effect in two years. Apple is one of the few companies that actually endorse the plan.

- West Village residents are pissed about the volume of the loudspeakers on tour buses. Tour guides shrug and return to blasting misinformation.

- Manhattan's laundromats are disappearing, a victim of high rents and luxury buildings that offer in-unit appliances. Like most that still use laundromats, I lazily depend on the wash-and-fold service. Even lazier, I make them deliver even though the one I use is in the basement of my own building. The clothes come back shrink-wrapped!

Manhattan Monday

The world's largest Gucci store opened on Fifth Avenue this weekend, taking up 46,000 square feet on three floors of Trump Tower. The fashion house simultaneously launched their new line of Gucci ♥ NY handbags and luggage, which retail for up to $7000. However, the state of New York owns the trademark for anything that ♥'s anything, something they have zealously protected to the tune of 3000 lawsuits to date. The state says Gucci never contacted them and does not have permission to use the ♥, but talks are in progress as all of Gucci's sales from the ♥ items (available only in NYC) will go to the playground fund of the Central Park Conservancy.

- Here's a neat NY Times map showing how NYC voted in the primary. Looks like Harlem, Brooklyn and downtown Manhattan went Obama. Which makes sense, I guess.

- The High School for Innovation In Advertising opens in the fall. The goal is to bring more black and Latino students into the ad game.

- Residents of the Upper West Side's famed Ansonia building are suing a fellow tenant for smoking in her own home. Tenants complain that they can smell her cigarettes in the hallway. I'm gonna sue my neighbor because I hate the smell of curry. Second-hand curry kills, people.

- Diversity is not in at Fashion Week. Via Gothamist: "Out of 1,584 model slots, 94 (6%) went to black models, 17 (1%) to Latinas and 95 (6%) to Asians. Of the 66 designers who showed in Bryant Park's tents, 18 had no black models, and 6 had all-white lineups."

- Most Googled terms by NYers in January: Heath Ledger, subprime, vodka, Oscar nominees, Giuiliani, Facebook, Apple, MacBook Air, Fashion Week, pilates.

- Tommy Sneakers, Jackie The Nose and 60 others with Goodfellas-esque names were among the Gambino family mobsters brought down in a massive sweep by feds across all five boroughs, the largest such mafia bust in decades. And Gotham's construction sites hoist flags of mourning.

Manhattan Monday

- It's raining men. And scaffolding. And concrete. Construction workers are falling out of the sky on almost a weekly basis these days. Manhattan's high-rise boom has created an 83% spike in construction accidents over the last year.

- Despite what my Punjabi cabbie told me last week, it looks like NYC's massive Indian community is voting Clinton, as are many new citizens around Gotham.

- Approved by the state traffic commission: Bloomberg's congestion pricing plan. Although only 5% of Manhattan's commuters drive to work, the plan (which must now be approved by the state legislature) will charge drivers $8 to drive below 60th Street on weekdays between 6am and 6pm.

- Verizon admits to overcharging NY'ers $14M on those little surcharges that crowd the bottom of your bill. That's what they admit to, anyhow. Them pennies add up.

- DKNY tackily usurps the Ghost Bike memorials to cyclists killed by cars.

- Barista-free: new LES coffee joint makes your java with computers and pneumatic tubes. Mmmm, tubey.

- An 80-story Four Seasons hotel designed by Robert A.M. Stern Architects will go up near Ground Zero. The building will include 143 "super-luxury" condos, some of which will exceed 6500 square feet. Construction to finish in three years, condos to sell out immediately, of course.

If you're apartment hunting, the 2007 year-end Manhattan rental recap is out.

Manhattan Monday

-The new Bermuda Triangle: the AAA tows more disabled cars away from the area around the Empire State Building than any place in the city. It's suspected that the ESB's giant radio tower is disabling car locks and triggering those security systems that turn your car off when it's stolen.

-The MTA is expanding the tap-and-go payment system to some bus lines. But they are looking for something "smarter" than smart cards. Retina scans?

-Manhattan's population has declined by over one million in the last hundred years. Population in 1910: 2,762,522. Estimated 2006 population: 1,611,581. Yeah, it feels totally like a ghost town.

-If the Giants win the Super Bowl, the stock market will go up, according to the Super Bowl Stock Theory.

-The tuna in NYC's sushi restaurants is apparently loaded with mercury. Mmm, thermometery.

-West Village residents rallied this weekend in support of keeping Pier 40 a public park. Private companies are bidding for the pier. Proposals include a company that wants to build a $625 million performing-arts center there, including a permanent home for Cirque du Soleil and the Tribeca Film Festival.

-You think you've had bad online dates? At least yours didn't involve al Qaeda. Her solution: sue for $50M.

Manhattan Monday

- Last year almost 2000 NY'ers responded to the MTA's "If you see something, say something" anti-terrorism campaign. One repeated theme was callers reporting Muslim men seen using counting devices, presumably to find the most crowded trains. Turns out the men were using prayer-counters as they mentally recited the "many names of God." The counters are sold in Islamic shops all over town.

- Mayor Bloomberg has decided to sell the list of Gothamites owing on their water bills to collection agencies. About 15% of city residents don't pay their water bills on a "regular basis." The city is owed $600M.

- In March, the Port Authority will be introducing unlimited rides passes for the PATH train. Weekly: $18. Monthly: $54.

- The deadline to register to vote in New York's Feb. 5th primary is this Friday. It's too late to switch your party affiliation, something I was considering doing just so I could vote against Huckabee.

- The window-washer who last month fell 47 stories from an Upper East Side apartment building not only lived, he's now expected to have a "substantial recovery." Falls from a 3-story height are fatal 50% of the time, so experts are speculating that the window-washing platform may have provided some sort of parachute effect. The man's brother died in the fall.

- Hundreds of protesters are expected to pack this week's public meetings about the plan to raze the amusement area of Coney Island and build a glitzy $1.5B hotel and entertainment complex.

- Felons are eligible to join the army, but not the NYPD. I'm all for rehabilitation, but I think I'm OK with this.
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Manhattan Monday

- Manhattan's famed 2nd Avenue Deli has reopened - on Third Avenue. The restaurant family's patriach, Abe Lebewohl, was murdered in 1996 in a robbery that remains unsolved. His nephew Jeremy is the co-owner of the new location. I can personally vouch for their spectacular corned beef and pastrami sandwich.

- Cabbies are continuing to thwart the new credit card system which sent them on strike earlier this year. Three out of five cab rides I had this weekend had "out of order" signs on their machines.

- Central Park's annual bird count showed the highest number of species and individual birds ever. "The largest flocks spotted were white-throated sparrows, European starling, and herring gull. Large numbers of mallards ducks, house sparrows, and Canada goose were also spotted."

- Whole Foods ignited a craze this summer with their $15 "designer" reusable shopping bags. But why stop there? Stella McCartney is selling a grocery bag for $465 and Hermes has one for $960. This story is a few months old, but I mention it now because yesterday I saw a woman shopping the Food Emporium with her Chanel grocery bag stuffed with cabbage. Crazy.

- Bond No.9, a company "devoted to bottling the smells inspired by New York City," today released their new fragrance, "Andy Warhol's Silver Factory". Who wants to smell like a dead artist? The living ones can be bad enough. (I kid, I kid.)

- The feds raided Al Sharpton's Harlem office on Thursday, wielding subpeonas in their investigation of whether he lied on his 2004 application requesting federal matching funds for his presidential campaign. Sharpton says he's innocent of lying. Tawana!
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Manhattan Monday

- NYC soup kitchens saw a 20% rise in hungry New Yorkers over the last year. New report: One out of six NY'ers, 1.3 million people, "cannot afford an adequate and consistent supply of food." When the economy catches a cold, the poor get pneumonia. Those in need can now call 311 for a direct connection to a food bank or soup kitchen in their neighborhood.

- Theater District restaurants are about to start laying off their staffs as the Broadway strike heads into its third week. Negotiations continue. One bright note: The Grinch was permitted to re-open.

- ConEd non-shocker: NYC's manhole covers are made in India under very unsafe conditions.

- State lawmakers have closed a loophole which would have allowed landlords who withdraw from government subsidy programs to immediately raise rents on their units to market value. Buildings affected must transition from rent-controlled to rent-stabilized, which allows for modest annual increases.

- A 25-unit apartment building a couple of blocks from me burned down yesterday. Everybody in my building seems to be cooking all the time and that worries me more than crime or terrorism. I think I should probably keep Shelley's crate on the fire escape.

Manhattan Monday

- The nine day old Broadway strike will continue though the Thanksgiving weekend as negotiations were broken off again on Saturday. No new talks are scheduled. Analysts are now describing the strike as a "disaster" for holiday tourism. Unrelated: the vanity plate on this car parked in front of my building.

- The feds have approved $1.3B for the construction of the Second Avenue subway line, which has been started and stopped several times since 1929. The first leg of the line should be ready for riders in about 600 years.

- NY 1 anchor Gary Ramsay was canned this week after he made a crank call to one of the station's live shows to rail against one-time Giuliani protege Bernard Kerik. Ramsay worked at the station for the last 15 years. "Journalistic suicide", indeed.

- Angering activists, openly gay City Council Speaker Christine Quinn is "adamantly opposing" a bill that would expand HIV outreach and services for the poor and homeless in New York City. Quinn says she is concerned about the program's costs and about setting precedent for offering assistance to those with HIV but not for those with other diseases. Quinn is expected to run for mayor when Bloomberg leaves office. I'm liking her less and less.

- Kept off the air by the writers strike, the cast of Saturday Night Live performed the show at the Upright Citizens Brigade comedy theater in Chelsea. Hosted by Michael Cera, the show was described as much racier than broadcast rules would have allowed.

- Inspired by the story of the Brooklyn hipster who found the "girl of his dreams" after seeing her on the subway and creating a website about her, a stockbroker has created SawYouOnTheTrain.com, where Gothamites can post their photos and descriptions of fellow riders upon whom they'd like to make creepy advances. Hey, it beats having them sit next to you.
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Manhattan Monday

- Real estate bust? What bust? A few blocks from me, a billionaire just paid $150 million for a condo, nearly double what has ever been paid for a Manhattan residence. He gets 30,000 square feet at about $5000/sq. ft. But hey, it comes with maid service.

- Also now available on the Upper East Side, the world's most expensive dessert: $25,000 for the "Frrrozen Haute Chocolate" at Serendipity 3. The ingredients, via Gothamist: "28 different cocoas and five grams of edible 24-karat gold, served in a goblet lined with edible gold. It’s consumed as conspicuously as possible with a gold spoon decorated with white and chocolate-colored diamonds and is crowned by an 18-karat gold bracelet with 1 carat of white diamonds. Both the spoon and bracelet are intended for the diner to keep, along with a vastly over-inflated sense of social status."

- Cable host James Lipton charged with being annoying. Verdict: extra guilty.

- Village Voice co-founder, six-time husband, one-time wife-stabber and heterosexual author Norman Mailer, dead at 84. Gore Vidal spotted dancing.

- Coming soon: No need to run down and check the sign, Manhattan's parking rules will go online. Of note: Temporary parking restrictions due to movie filming will not appear on the site. Sorta related: You can now subscribe to Port Authority text messages advising about traffic on the Hudson River crossings. Which you'll receive in New Jersey. Where it's illegal to use electronic devices behind the wheel.

- Some straight guy saw the "girl of his dreams" on the subway, and created a webpage about her, mentioning her rosy cheeks and braided hair. Turns out, she wasn't Wendy.

Manhattan Monday

-After their dismal showing this season, the Yankees have replaced manager Joe Torre with the infinitely hotter former catcher Joe Girardi. Makes me want to care about the American League again. Almost. The Yankees won three World Series with Girardi behind the plate.

-The 34th Annual Greenwich Village Halloween Parade starts at 7pm on Wednesday. In honor of the day, the Empire State Building, normally darkened at midnight, will be illuminated in orange until dawn.

-Diplomats from the the Democratic Republic of Congo bought dozens of handguns at a Chinatown gun shop. No explanation of how they side-stepped New York's stringent license requirements.

-The former site of CBGB's is being turned into a boutique for fashion designer John Varvatos, whose work is a favorite of many rockers such as Slash and Alice Cooper. All in all, not a terribly bad use of a legendary space. But, still.

-New York City grocery stores may be ordered to recycle their plastic bags. Stores would have to provide a place for customers to return empty bags or face a $2000 daily fine. "Honey, can you run out for some milk? Oh, and here, take these 20 bags back with you." Yeah, not gonna happen.

Manhattan Monday

-Fuerzabruta, a show involving aerial, aquatic, acrobatic and dancing components opens on Wednesday in Union Square's Daryl Roth Theatre. "Fuerzabruta (it means “brute force”) is a largely wordless physical and visual extravaganza inspired in part by Carnaval. It is built around a few major set pieces: a 45-foot clear-bottom tilting pool, hung from the ceiling and only partly filled; flying, building-size Mylar curtains; and the moving treadmill. The 13 men and women in the cast run, fly, swim and dive, strapped in harnesses and occasionally hovering just above the audience, which remains standing for the hourlong show." Tickets are $70.

-NYC's rotating taxi strike is on again today, with approximately 10,000 of the city's cabs off the roads for 24 hours. Mayor Bloomberg has reinstated the zone system for fare calculations - $10 per passenger, $5 per zone. Ugh, I hate when cabs are allowed to pick up other fares during your ride. Washington DC, the last major city in the country on a zone system, decided last week to switch to metered fares.

-Horseback riding has returned to Central Park. Guided tours operated by a Bronx-based stable will take you through the park's four miles of bridle paths. Cost: $100/hr. In April, Manhattan's last horse stable closed to be turned into luxury condos.

-Yesterday Broadway's stagehand union voted unanimously to strike if they don't get a new contract within 30 days. The strike would darken 22 of 39 Broadway houses.

-Arrests of NYPD cops for theft, fraud, drug use, corruption, and sexual improprieties climbed 25% last year. Last week a fresh scandal arose when the bust of an illegal internet steroid distributor revealed a number of city cops on its customer list.

Manhattan Monday

- DRV-IN, a one-car "drive-in" movie theatre has opened on the Lower East Side. For $75, you and your pals can sit in a 1965 Falcon convertible while films are projected on a pull-down screen. Three shows a day, concession stand available, reservations required. The theatre is sold out for days in advance. $75 to sit in a car and watch old movies. And it's a hit. Go figure.

-Impressed on a recent visit with London's "Ring of Steel", Mayor Bloomberg wants to dramatically increase the number of security cameras trained on public places.

-The Shinnecocks, a local Native American tribe, is pushing for a $1.4 billion casino at the Aqueduct Raceway. If the tribe gets the Aqueduct site, they promise to drop their long-held claim on tribal land in Southhampton, which will surely influence the movers and shakers who don't want their summer playground ruined. The casino would be 1 million square-feet, with 10,500 slot machines and 300 gaming table. Annual revenue to the city: $500 million. Atlantic City will surely do their best to kill the proposal, which is thought to be a long-shot.

-The Rockefeller Center skating rink is open for the season. Adults: $18, including skate rental.

-Yesterday's Yoga For Zombies had over 100 undead doing downward dog in Williamsburg. "Ohmmm. Braaaaaaains."

-CMJ '07 Music Marathon & Film Festival runs tomorrow thru Saturday, featuring hundreds of bands you've never heard of. On the bill: MSTRKRFT, Nashville Pussy, and the unlistenable AIDS Wolf.

-Concerned about the advent of cellphone service in the subway, City Councilman Oliver Koppell has asked the MTA to look into making one car on each train a "quiet car", as Amtrak does. As Gothamist said, HA! They also point out that moving between subway cars is illegal, making it a bit difficult to get to the quiet car. I can't wait until the first person gets stabbed for trying to enforce the rule.
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Manhattan Monday

-NYC taxis get a logo makeover, design geeks take offense.

-The fine for stealing recyclables from trash has been raised from $100 to $5000 for repeat offenders, in an attempt to thwart underground trash-picking businesses that prowl in advance of city garage trucks. City officials promise that the new law is not aimed at homeless people.

-Daniel Leibeskind is designing a 74-story tower to go up on Madison Avenue next to the Clock Tower. Neighborhood activists are predictably unhappy.

-Subway stations are getting outfitted with powerful cell-phone signal amplifiers, making it possible for commuters to use their phones on the platforms (but not in the tunnels.) The upside: 911 operators will be able to triangulate your position more accurately than if you were on the street.

-Tonight a massive party on Grand Army Plaza will celebrate today's 100th birthday of the Plaza Hotel. Fireworks will be be launched from the hotel's roof and a giant "100" will be illuminated on its side.

-The MTA is proposing a new fare schedule that would give discounts for commuting during off-peak hours. Pay-per-ride fares would drop to $1.50 for off-peak and midday travel. The new plan would do away with the bonus rides given for Metrocard purchases over $10. An alternate plan raises the per-ride charge to $2.25.